The Pentagon is treating a string of freezer failures at U.S. military commissaries as a suspected cyberattack, Reuters reported Thursday, citing four officials. The Pentagon has not publicly confirmed that hackers were responsible, Task & Purpose reported.
Key Highlights
- Reuters, citing four officials, reported that the Pentagon is treating the August malfunctions as a suspected hack. It is not publicly confirmed.
- At least six commissaries were affected in late August, according to Reuters’ review of public posts.
- The Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) leads a joint investigation, a Defense Department official told Task & Purpose.
- A separate cyberattack hit French supermarkets in October. U.S. investigators are in contact with French counterparts, Reuters reported.
What Happened at the Commissaries
Commissaries are on-base grocery stores for military families. At least six had sudden refrigeration failures in late August, Reuters reported. Fox News named Fort Huachuca in Arizona, F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, Travis Air Force Base in California and Fort Irwin in California.
Military Times reported outages at seven Army, Navy and Air Force installations, according to Task & Purpose.
Fort Huachuca said in an Aug. 26 Facebook post that its freezer “went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food,” Reuters reported. Fox News said Fort Irwin limited sales to dry goods afterward.
In at least one case, cooling units were set to higher temperatures overnight instead of simply shutting off, leaving food wilted or melted by morning, Reuters reported.
None of the reports gives a dollar figure for the losses.
Who Is Investigating
A Defense Department official confirmed the DCIS-led probe. “We are aware of speculation regarding a potential cyber incident,” the official said, according to Task & Purpose. The official added that the department does not comment on ongoing law enforcement investigations.
Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Thomas Hamilton said the Army CID is working with DCIS and French law enforcement “in understanding the refrigeration outages in Europe.”
A unit of U.S. Cyber Command is “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners,” Reuters reported. The report said no further details were provided.
The French Attack
Earlier in October, hackers overrode temperature controls on commercial cooling units at more than 350 French establishments, Reuters reported. Some units caught fire, and temperatures were raised instead of units being switched off. The Paris prosecutor’s office called it a “large-scale” attack, Fox News reported.
One supermarket owner estimated nationwide costs could reach tens of millions of euros, Reuters reported. Danish firm Danfoss, whose controllers ran many of the affected units, said many devices were obsolete or ran outdated firmware.
Reuters said it could not establish whether Danfoss or any other brand of controller was used at the affected U.S. bases.
Why Security Experts Are Concerned
Bill Moore, CEO of Xona Systems, told Reuters that controllers once serviced only in person are increasingly connected to the internet. He said the problem could “definitely disrupt the supply chain for food.”
The Global Food Safety Initiative said “a hacked cooling system is just as dangerous as a broken one,” Reuters reported.
A 2021 Department of Homeland Security assessment named refrigeration failures as a cyber risk that could cause spoilage and shortages, Defense One reported.
Wes Bryant, a former Air Force special operations member, said food access is a vulnerability for troops. “A lot of troops won’t work with no access to food,” he told Task & Purpose.
What Remains Unknown
Several questions are unresolved. The Pentagon has not publicly confirmed a cyberattack or named a suspect, and it is unclear how far the investigation has progressed.
Authorities are also examining whether the U.S. and French incidents are connected, Fox News reported. That link is unconfirmed.
The possible sabotage was first flagged on Aug. 28 by the blog Signal and Silence, Reuters reported. Western News Daily has not independently verified the incidents beyond these published reports.
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Sources: Reuters via CP24 (Oct. 29); Task & Purpose (Oct. 29); Fox News (Oct. 29); Defense One (Oct. 29).
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